Wouldn’t you like a genie to help in your time of need? By adding a player (or two) to any existing game, you will create a genie who can come to the aid of the less experienced players to help them win. Here’s the trick: you are the Genie. And those bottles bring challenges of their own…

I Am the Genie! can be played with any existing game, though it was designed with 2 person strategy games in mind. The game challenges more experienced players, Genies, to hone their mentoring skills and learn how to pass those skills on to less experienced players, Aspiring Heroes. But, like the three wishes you can ask of a traditional genie, the Genie only gets three tries to help the Aspiring Heroes. Worse yet, the Genie is still stuck in the bottle, and can’t see the game as it’s being played. Is the Genie up for the challenge? Will the Aspiring Hero actually succeed?

THE SET-UP
To play the basic version of I Am the Genie! you need the following:
1) a 2 player strategy game. This can be any pre-existing 2 player strategy game, such as chess, checkers, terrace, Odin’s Ravens, etc.
2) 3-4 players. At least 1 person (in the 3 player version) or 2 people (in the 4 player version) have played the game before.
3) A timer
4) A place for a private conversation or a way to block some player’s hearing (i.e. full ear earphones with music).

Next the players must collectively agree upon an experience ranking for all the players. This might be easily done in an informal verbal exchange. If that doesn’t work, then simply rank according to how many times people have played the game before. In cases of a tie, break the tie according to who has played the most strategy games (of any kind) in the past 6 months.

3 Player Ranking:
The player with the most experience is the Genie, the player with the mid-level experience is The Challenge, and the player with the least experience is the Aspiring Hero. In other words, according to experience rank:

1=Genie
2=Challenge
3=Aspiring Hero

4 Player Ranking:
In the 4 player version, 2 different Genies help 2 different Aspiring Heroes. With 1 as the most experienced player, players are assigned the following roles:
1=Genie A
2=Genie B
3=Aspiring Hero B
4=Aspiring Hero A

Genie A, most experienced, helps Aspiring Hero A, least experienced, and Genie B helps Aspiring Hero B.

The game is set-up according to its regular rules. The Genies must be arranged so that they cannot see the game. This means, they could be sitting nearby blindfolded, or it could mean that they are playing a different game (one of those OTHER games that Genies play in bottle land…), or even that they’re off-site and only connected via phone or internet.

THE GAME
The non-Genies play the game as they normally would, with one exception. The Aspiring Heroes (only one in the 3 player game, or both of the people actually playing the strategy game in the 4 player game), may call upon the Genie three times for help in the course of the game. They can get 3 different kinds of help throughout the game, but can get each kind of help only once.

The Genie and Aspiring Hero can discuss before the game any preferences for what order the types of help might come in, but it is ultimately up to the Aspiring Hero which kind of help they want when they summon the Genie.

These are the three different forms of help available:

The Question — The Aspiring Hero may ask the Genie a single question, which the Genie must answer as best they can. The question must be a single sentence. The Genie can consider the question and then has 2 minutes to answer the question (as set by the timer). The timer does not begin until the Genie starts talking. The question and the Genie’s answer can be public or private and this is determined by the questioner and the responding Genie.

The Overview — The Aspiring Hero gets 2 minutes to describe what’s happening overall in the game. The Genie and Hero then have another 2 minutes to discuss the matter freely. This discussion may happen privately or publicly, but must be decided ahead of time.

The Socratic Method — The Genie gets to ask the Aspiring Hero one question. The Hero does not reply. The idea is for the experienced Genie to ask a question that may help the Aspiring Hero think of the game strategy in a new way. It is a chance for the Genie to offer advice that the Aspiring Hero may not even know to ask for.

If the Genie’s Aspiring Hero wins the strategy game, then the Genie also wins the I Am the Genie! game.

PLAYTEST RESULTS
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This hasn’t been through a lot of playtesting yet, but my friends and I did get through one round of it.

It was a game of chess. We played the 3-player version of I Am the Genie! and I personally played the Genie, though was concerned since I’m not much of a chess player – I just happened to have played more than my co-players. Robert was The Aspiring Hero and Liz was The Challenge. I sat at a different table with my back to the game.

We decided to keep all questions public for purposes of feedback and understanding the game. This decision alone made us realize that a mandatory public debrief should be included in the game, so that all 3-4 players can learn from the Aspiring Hero and Genie interactions — more mentoring and learning.

In this case, Robert (our Aspiring Hero) asked for help in this order: Socratic Method, Question, Overview.

The Socratic Method came pretty early. Each player had made a number of moves out into the board, but no major skirmishes had happened. We hadn’t discussed beforehand what order to consider for the help requests. I was a bit panicked, because I was hoping to have time to think of a really good question here. The Genie’s question: “Have you created a way for your King to move and escape an attack on the current location?” This later proved useful, according to Liz, because Robert did open up a space next to the king, which effectively ruined a two pronged attack she was planning.

Next came the Question: “Should I sacrifice my knight to take a rook?” If I was a better chess Genie, I might have been able to answer this better. As it was, I cautioned against throwing away a knight because of their ability to fight queens, and so thought it had better be worth it in a big way for some deeper strategy. He decided not to sacrifice the knight. It’s hard to say if this was the right move, as apparently that area of the board stayed locked in checks and balances for a while.

Finally, the overview. This came a bit late in the game. Robert was already losing pretty badly. It was very challenging in the time frame to really get a clear idea of where everything was. Robert used general words (not chess notation) to describe the layout and I wasn’t sure I really had it right (nor was I sure if I’d have been any more help if I had). I was able to suggest a possible route to restore his queen, but it was a gamble, and it didn’t pay off.

In the end Robert lost and I won no Genie prizes.

Afterward, when we discussed the game, we definitely were intrigued by the challenge and different strategies of when to ask for which kind of help. Should you start with the Overview? or save it until later? Should you ask the Socratic Method early on to get the overall help, or wait until later when the Genie can have had some time thinking up what the best question would be and how to capture some fundamental strategy consideration succinctly?

We also liked the idea of adding some meta- scoring for the Genie over time. It’s easy to imagine that one might have the same crowd playing the same game 5 times in a row. Obviously the Aspiring Hero gets to build upon previous lessons (that’s part of the idea), but how many games does it take before the Aspiring Hero wins? How many games does it take until the Aspiring Hero wins at least a third of the time?

Another idea we had was to add some way for the Aspiring Hero to score their Genie’s help on a simple yes/no it was or wasn’t helpful. That way if the Genie’s advice was confusing or unhelpful, the Genie doesn’t score a win. In other words, if the Hero loses, then the Genie loses too. But if the Hero wins with, effectively, no help from the Genie (in some cases perhaps in spite of the Genie’s advice), then we thought the Genie shouldn’t necessarily win then either.

All in all, we felt it was a success and were excited to try it with 4 players and with something other than chess.

GAMEFUL CHALLENGE #4: Notching Up Natches

I Am the Genie! (2 posts)